1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display racks for supporting and displaying canned, packed or bottled beverages in a display case or showcase.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a display case or showcase is used for displaying bottles, cans or packs of liquors, beverages or foods (referring to “articles” hereinafter) at the point of sale.
Such a display case or showcase, especially for refrigerated displays (referring to “display case” hereinafter) has a plurality of shelves or floors on each of which a display rack is installed fixedly. A display rack has a plurality of channels laterally side-by side for accommodating and displaying articles therein. Generally the shelves or floors are made of wires in order to simplify the inner structure and to facilitate refrigerating efficiency in the display case. A gravity fed type of the display case refers to a display case having inclined shelves or floors so that articles in the channel of the display racks move forwardly under the influence of gravity as the lead article is removed from the channel.
It is desirable in refilling channels of a display rack that the already displayed old articles are positioned toward the front of the display racks and the fresh or new articles are behind the old articles. However, it is difficult to refill the articles by putting them behind the old articles in the rear of each channel because of the narrow space between the display racks and between the channels of a display rack in a display case. Accordingly, refilling the new articles behind the old articles requires removal of all the old articles in the channels of the display racks. This is, of course, a very time consuming operation. Under such circumstances, the new articles are usually refilled into the front of the channels of the display racks by pushing the old articles backward. This causes the old articles in the rear of the channels to continue to remain in the rear of the channels of the display rack without being retrieved upon each refilling.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a display rack having a plurality of channels laterally side-by side in which each of channels can be slid forwardly out of the display rack so that the new articles are refillable behind the old articles.
It is another object of the invention to provide a display rack module which constitutes one channel of a display rack, a plurality of which are connected with each other laterally side-by side to form a display rack with independently slidable channel trays.
It is further object of the invention to provide a display rack which has stopper means to secure the slidable channel trays on the display rack in displaying mode and to limit the traveling distance of the channel tray out of the display rack and secure the channel tray in refilling mode.